Chocolate sauce. It's what folks across the pond call a no-brainer: take dessert, add molten chocolate, die happy. Indeed, it's so obvious that we foodies seem to have forgotten it, our heads turned by the more rarefied pleasures of hibiscus beet gelato or sanguinello sorbet, works of art in need of no adornment save a sprinkle of sea salt flakes or a knowing drizzle of extra virgin.

The sticky sauce, by contrast, seems to belongs to a world of tutti frutti and banana splits, relegated to faded seaside caffs and Mr Whippy vans. Even McDonald's has quietly retired its chocolate sundae for goodness' sake – that's how serious this situation is, people.Personally, I was always a fan of Bird's Ice Magic, a sickly concoction that miraculously set to a hard shell on vegetable fat-laden 1980s ice cream (although the product is sadly no longer available in the UK, a Wikipedia page helpfully informs me that, "contrary to what many people believe, paraffin wax is not an ingredient". Reassuring). In the tragic absence of this crowning glory of British gastronomy I'm forced to fall back on my own resources to make the perfect chocolate sauce for drizzling over sundaes, spooning onto cherries and, let's face it, dipping your finger in every time you pass the fridge. Dignity goes out the window when chocolate sauce is involved.

The chocolate

Bill Granger recipe chocolate sauce. Photograph: Felicity Cloake

The simplest recipe I try comes from sunny Aussie TV chef Bill Granger, and just involves cream and dark chocolate. Nigel Slater and Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham also use just chocolate in their sauces, but Alice Hart, David Lebovitz and ice-cream experts Caroline and Robin Weir add cocoa as well.

As I discovered when making brownies, cocoa powder gives an intense chocolate flavour without adding any extra weight, but I find it a little too powerful here. Unlike most dark chocolates, cocoa powder is unsweetened, which means adding sugar, and the bittersweet result is a little more sophisticated than I want from my chocolate sauce. That said, once it's poured over ice cream, Alice Hart's recipe, from her book Friends at My Table, is rather good in a grown-up kind of a way. One day, perhaps I'll graduate to that.

Interestingly, no one ever seems to make chocolate sauce with milk chocolate, presumably because it's just too sweet to go well with ice cream.

The body: sticky v unctuous

Alice Hart recipe chocolate sauce. Photograph: Felicity Cloake

Chocolate sauces seem to divide into two equally tempting camps of gooey goodness. There's the sticky syrup, the kind of thing you might hope to find drizzled over your Dame Blanche in a Belgian cafe (continental European establishments seem to recognise the primacy of the sundae as a mid-afternoon food group, while we Brits offer only cakes and scones, to my great regret), and then there's the unctuous variety, made with cream, and good enough to eat on its own.

In the sticky corner, we have Alice Hart, Robin and Caroline Weir, and former-French-Laundry-pastry-chef-turned-fabulous-food-writer, David Lebovitz, who eschews all dairy fat in his "best chocolate sauce" having felt a curious compulsion to "create a chocolate sauce that was rich, thick, glossy, and not loaded with butter or cream". It's good, but very, very sweet indeed – the only way I can eat it without feeling slightly queasy is with tangy frozen yoghurt. Which is hardly the point.

David Lebovitz recipe chocolate sauce. Photograph: Felicity Cloake

Robin and Caroline, authors of the truthfully-named book Ice Cream, Sorbets & Gelati: the definitive guide, stir a chunk of butter into their sauce, which gives it a pleasant gloss as well as helping to keep it liquid. Not that their recipe needs any help in the latter direction, however: made with water and golden syrup, it's very much in the drizzling rather than spooning camp. It tastes good, but I prefer something with more presence: this definitely couldn't be eaten on its own. (Although, if you've run out of hot chocolate ... )

What all these sticky sauces have in common is that, for my palate, they're just too sweet: there needs to be something else to temper the intense bittersweetness of the chocolate, and that something, in my opinion, is cream.

Enter Nigel Slater, Simon and Lindsey, and Bill Granger: the chocolate sauce dream team. Nigel and the Prawn Cocktail Years duo both use whipping cream in their recipes but, as Bill doesn't specify a variety (so laid-back, these Aussies) I ring the changes and give double cream a whirl in his. This proves to be a mistake – the sauce is far too rich to spoon over ice cream, although it is rather toothsome straight from the bowl.

The whipping cream gives a lighter result, but although I like the way it balances the flavour of the chocolate, I'm going to use less than either recipe suggests. Chocolate sauce is always best served with something creamy, so it shouldn't be too rich on its own.

The sugar

Strictly speaking, you don't need any extra sweetener in chocolate sauce, and some of the recipes I try certainly go too far down the syrup road for my liking (the Weirs' sauce, for example, contains 165g sugar to 100g chocolate and 1½ tbsp cocoa powder). But although my tastes aren't quite as childish as once they were, I do think this sauce deserves to be a little more fun than the no-added sugar recipes from Bill, Nigel, Simon and Lindsey.

Inspired by Alice Hart, rather than adding straight sugar I'm going to use golden syrup: it adds a pleasant toffeeish sweetness and just a hint of joyous stickiness. Lebovitz suggests using corn, agave or glucose syrup "to give it a shine", but I prefer the flavour of the classic British sweetener despite the low-GI claims of the agave syrup I use in his recipe. I have a feeling that nothing is going to make chocolate sauce a health food.

Extra flavourings

Nigel Slater recipe chocolate sauce. Photograph: Felicity Cloake

I've avoided going too far down the flavouring road, because the possibilities are near infinite and how can one choose between a sauce gently spiced with cinnamon and chilli, and one laced with peanut butter? Hobson's choice indeed. However, three of my recipes sneak in flavourings intended to subtly enhance rather than compete with the chocolate.

Nigel boldly adds a couple of tablespoons of espresso for his "luscious, not-too-sweet sauce" in Real Food. I like it – chocolate and coffee is a combination I enjoyed long before I ever actually drank anything as grown-up as an espresso – but it's not the sauce I'm looking for here: even in such small quantities, the coffee comes through, muddying the chocolate flavour.

The Weirs add a squeeze of lemon juice, which isn't really necessary unless your sauce is as sweet as theirs, and Alice Hart a generous pinch of salt, which she urges readers not to skip, because "just a touch will balance all that sweetness". She's right: as in so many sweet things the salt, although difficult to pick out, gives her sauce a more well-rounded flavour than the other stickies.

Method

Bill Granger melts his chocolate and cream together in a bain marie, which seems over fussy to me: as long as you keep your heat nice and low, and an eagle eye on proceedings you shouldn't have a problem melting chocolate in cream. One less thing to wash up.

Perfect chocolate sauce

Felicity's perfect chocolate sauce. Photograph: Felicity Cloake

Sweet, rich and chocolatey, this is a sauce that needs little accompaniment. But, for the sake of your dignity, I'd suggest vanilla ice cream and, as we're keeping things unabashedly traditional, a cherry or two. Deploy a cocktail umbrella entirely at your discretion.

1. Put the chocolate and cream into a small, heavy-based pan over a low heat. Heat, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate has melted into the cream to make a smooth paste.

2. Stir in the syrup, followed by the butter and salt, to give a glossy sauce.

3. Keep warm until ready to serve, or just eat as is.

What do you like to pour your chocolate sauce on? (Please, people, recognised foodstuffs only.) Why can't you get a decent ice cream sundae in the UK, and what (drum roll) would be your ultimate combination?